2015 Pipe Masters – R1 Update

R1 is over, but no one's season has ended yet. The losers have all been reseeded into R2 and that's where we'll see some drama.

So far, our picks are doing great and our Gut Instincts Team looks like it could go all the way:

Obviously we need Jack Robinson to pick up the slack, but if R1 were 1.5 seconds longer he would have scored his way into R3.

Here's all our recommendations (with Total FP) for Pipe WSL Fantasy:

LOCKs:

Gabriel Medina (32.6)

John John Florence (33.33)

Jamie O'Brien (28.06

Sleepers:

Italo Ferreira (34.26)

Jeremy Flores (31.27)

Kai Otton (32.4)

Wiggolly Dantas (1.1)

Recommended:

Nat Young (6.67)

Josh Kerr (33.06)

Jack Robinson (5.06)

And here's who we recommended against:

Traps:

Adriano de Souza (7.23)

Joel Parkinson (8.17)

Kelly Slater (9.8)

Filipe Toledo (7.84)

Not Recommended:

Julian Wilson (3.84)

C.J. Hobgood (34.97)

Jordy Smith (7.17)

Safe to say we're killing it so far, but like we mentioned, no one is packing their bags just yet...

R2 is not where dreams are made, but where they are crushed. With Mick Fanning and Michel Bourez (World Title leader and CT Cutoff leader respectively) safely nested in R3, the odds are further shifted in their favor. Gabriel Medina keeps his dreams alive by advancing as well, but Adriano de Souza, Filipe Toledo and Julian Wilson will face a sink-or-swim elimination round (as well as Sebastian Zietz, Kolohe Andino, Keanu Asing, Stuart Kennedy, and Dusty Payne on the cutoff side).

As you can see, a healthy mix of tier representation is distributed amongst the leaders. Jamie O'Brien did exactly what we knew he could, putting Toledo into R2, and we outlined Michel Bourez as more of a R1 threat than de Souza - delivered as well. The largest contingent of ≤1% started we've seen this year won R1: Mason Ho (0%), Jamie O'Brien (0%), Italo Ferreira (1%), and Jeremy Flores (1%) - two of our Sleepers and one of our LOCKs (we probably would have given you Mason Ho as well if given enough time, especially since he was given Owen's 5th seed). Here's a visual of how our picks fared:

If you're not following us on Twitter, you should be; we had a blast today dropping real-time stats and images during Heats. Here are some you may have liked:

Our projection model now runs in real-time and provides updates as Rounds progress. Here is a sortable table of our new live projections:

Skipping R2 has boosted the chances for Gabriel Medina and John John Florence significantly above the rest of the field, and Jamie O'Brien is officially in the mix.

We're also able to simulate Round outcomes. We ran 1,000 simulations of Round 2 and here are the win percentages for each Heat:

Filipe Toledo: 84% / Bruce Irons: 16%

Adriano de Souza: 54% / Jack Robinson: 46%

Julian Wilson: 72% / Wade Carmichael: 28%

Kelly Slater: 74% / Dusty Payne: 26%

Nat Young: 76% / Glenn Hall: 24%

Joel Parkinson: 65% / Ricardo Christie: 35%

Wiggolly Dantas: 41% / Jordy Smith: 59%

Taj Burrow: 67% / Brett Simpson: 33%

Matt Wilkinson: 44% / Adam Melling: 56%

Adrian Buchan: 51% / Miguel Pupo: 49%

Jadson Andre: 52% / Sebastian Zietz: 52%

Keanu Asing: 42% / Kolohe Andino: 58%

It's interesting how the simulations show Toledo handily beating Bruce Irons, but Jack Robinson coming very close to de Souza.

For World Title implications, if de Souza and Toledo lose in R2 and Fanning and Medina lose in R3, Julian Wilson must win the Masters to take the World Title. It's not as impossible as it seems.

If Kolohe Andino and Sebastian Zietz lose in R2 then Zietz will not qualify for the 2016 CT, Kolohe will due to his QS standings, Stuart Kennedy won't because Kolohe didn't CT qualify and Dusty Payne won't because Miguel Pupo and Andino didn't both qualify. A lot is riding on R2H12.

We're very excited to get R2 underway, hope you'll follow the action along with us @surfstats.